Topic of CEO conversation: The weather

The weather is always a popular topic in discussions of retail performance, but it seems this recent quarter has produced a storm of exceptionally intense meteorological commentary.

The following are just some of the examples of CEOs talking about the weather taken from news reports of the past several days:

• "For the second quarter in a row, very poor weather conditions, especially in April and May, and fragile consumer confidence significantly impacted our quarterly results," said Robert Dutton, president and CEO of RONA.